Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park whose genius ushered in a new era of light and sound for humankind, invented the phonograph at his New Jersey laboratory on this day in history, Aug. 12, ...

December 24, 1877. Thomas Edison files a patent for the first phonograph capable of recording and playing sound. The ...

Thomas Edison is often credited with recording the first human sound. In reality, that achievement belongs to a French ...

Just the other day, I heard one of the earliest popular recorded sambas, Donga’s “Pelo Telefone,” from 1916 and released on an Edison talking record, probably a wax cylinder. A few years later the ...

Edison's phonograph was a sensation. Premiering Jan. 27 on PBS. On December 7, 1877 Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph at the New York City offices of the nation’s leading technical weekly ...

This bizarre invention has almost definitely had a massive impact on your life – and you likely don’t even know what it is. But there’s one man – and a very strange invention we would likely never ...

One hundred years ago on a December day in 1877, the world’s first recording session took place in a laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was strictly a one-man show. A 30-year-old scientist, Thomas Alva ...

WEST ORANGE — Sheltered from the summer sun by the red and white tarp of a carnival tent, Jerry Fabris set his ancient machines spinning. Musicians jostled for position around him, pointing horns at a ...

It was 1877 when Thomas Edison recorded the first words ever: “Mary had a little lamb.” Now, 118 years later, people including Don Gfell are briskly trading Edison’s and other antique phonographs.

But there’s one man – and a very strange invention we would likely never have listened to music without – who we have to thank for it all. The story of sound recording, and reproduction, began 143 ...